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Philip Green has no stake in Syco
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 26 July 2011
Arcadia Group chief Philip Green has no stake in Syco Entertainment, The Guardian has revealed, having seen a Companies House filing for the Simon Cowell led music and entertainment firm.
As previously reported, in 2009 Green and Cowell announced they were forming a joint venture business that would have both retail and entertainment interests. The comments led to speculation as to what that meant for Cowell’s existing partnership with Sony Music, which owned his Syco company.
Then in early 2010 Sony announced a new deal with Cowell, which would keep the A&R man and talent show star within their empire. Syco was spun off as its own company, in which the music major and Cowell would each have a 50% stake. It was quite a coup for Cowell, as it gave him co-ownership of the various TV franchises his Syco business had created.
But it wasn’t clear what that meant for the Green/Cowell partnership, although reports suggested Green had helped negotiate the new deal with Sony. Some wondered whether Cowell’s half of Syco would actually be held by the mooted JV between him and Green.
But no, it seems. The Guardian says Cowell owns the vast majority of his stake in Syco, 49.95% of the company to be precise, personally. Another 0.05% is owned by Zelltore Ltd, a company wholly owned by Cowell. As Sony owns the other 50% of Syco, Green therefore isn’t involved at all.
The Guardian has previously reported that the Green/Cowell partnership cooled somewhat once new negotiations with Sony began in late 2009. Cowell was keen to stay in business with the music major, partly because of personal friendships, and partly because they controlled most of the intellectual property he had helped build over the previous few years. But, The Guardian says, Green didn’t get on with Sony execs, forcing Cowell to rethink his business relationship with the retail man.
So, it seems, the great Cowell/Green partnership was just a short-lived ambition that never came to much, with both men returning to their individual successful business empires. Though The Guardian adds that a source close to Green told the newspaper that he still had a confidential “informal business agreement” with Cowell. So, who knows?
